| dc.description.abstract | My project intends to analyze the education potential of comic heroes for the humanities in the development of a democratic citizenry. Drawing on critiques of certain Enlightenment conceptions of an individual autonomous self, the limitations of the negative freedom of classic liberalism, and the tragic metanarrative that largely informs the current American sociopolitical landscape, I propose comedy and, specifically, the locus of this comic vision, the comic hero, as a more comprehensive way into liberation that aligns more closely with our necessarily social lives, and foregrounds equality and solidarity. Using classic and contemporary comic and sociopolitical theory, Foucauldian discourse analysis, as well as case studies of comic heroes from a variety of sources, I intend to form progressive comic heroes or point to those already in existence and search out the areas that the study of the comic hero can be implemented in order to enact the most change and to additionally see how this increased study will alter the specific areas and mediums of transmission. | en |
